CANBERRA (Reuters) - An Australian soldier has been charged with
misconduct for kicking the corpse of a militia fighter during a mission in
East Timor in 1999, the Defense Department said Friday.

The charge is the first to emerge from an investigation into
allegations Australia's elite Special Air Service (SAS) troops tortured
pro-Indonesian militia members and shot one in the head execution-style
during the high-profile peace mission.

"I can confirm that one serviceman has been charged with
misconduct with relation to corpses, in that he kicked a body," Chief
of Army Lieutenant-General Peter Leahy said in a statement.

A spokeswoman for the Defense Department declined to name the soldier
or say when he had been charged, but said the investigation was
continuing.

The military revealed two years ago it was investigating about 18
incidents of alleged misconduct by the elite SAS troops relating to an
ambush near Suai in East Timor's far west, in which two militiamen were
killed and others captured.

The United Nations exhumed militia corpses as part of the investigation
into the cause of one man's death on October 6, 1999, and into claims some
of the prisoners were treated brutally and tortured during interrogation.

The incident threatens to sully the highly praised role Australia
played in leading a United Nations force in East Timor after a vote for
independence from Indonesia sparked violence and up to 1,000 killings by
pro-Jakarta militias.

East Timor celebrated its full independence as the world's newest
nation in May 2002 but a scaled-down U.N. peacekeeping mission is still
active there as the country grooms new leaders to assume its
responsibilities.

Former elite soldier charged amid claims of a battlefield execution By
Deborah Snow

February 21 2003

Charges are understood to have been laid against a former senior
soldier in the Special Air Service after a long investigation into
allegations of serious misconduct by members of the elite unit in East
Timor.

The charges are believed to relate to allegations dating from October
1999, when a battle broke out near the town of Suai between an SAS patrol
and members of an Indonesian-backed militia group opposed to Timorese
independence.

The allegations are understood to centre on three issues: whether one
of the militia members was killed in an execution-style shooting; whether
there was any misuse of the corpses of the two militia members who died;
and whether other captured members of the militia unit were beaten or
otherwise mistreated during their later interrogation by SAS members.

It is understood that the charges were laid earlier this month and are
the first to be brought in connection with the investigation, which has
dragged on behind closed doors in the Defence Department for more than
three years.

At the time of the battle, members of the SAS were part of the United
Nations-backed mission to restore order to Timor after the violent
upheaval sparked by the vote for independence.

The department has been circumspect about the investigation, which has
been conducted against the backdrop of the Timor mission, the subsequent
engagement by the SAS in Afghanistan and deployment of some of the unit's
members to the Gulf ahead of the looming war on Iraq.

When the Suai allegations originally surfaced in late 2000, General
Peter Cosgrove, who headed the Timor mission and is now Chief of the
Defence Force, said an initial investigation had found the claims to be
groundless but that he had reopened the inquiry after the "rumours
resurfaced".

He pledged at the time that the inquiry would be
"comprehensive" and "impartial" .

Australian Federal Police and UN investigators became involved and late
last year it was revealed that the bodies of two militiamen had been
exhumed from a mass grave outside Dili as part of the investigation.

At the time, the department said a dozen of 18 allegations had been
dismissed, but it is believed that a pathologists' report on the bodies
went to Defence headquarters just before Christmas.

A spokeswoman for the department yesterday refused to respond directly
to questions about whether any charges had been laid. "The army is
conducting an investigation into the allegations and the results will be
made public when it is complete," she said, but could not say when
that might be.

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